Situation of hunger deteriorates in Assam tea garden

Silchar

11 February, 2012

Barak Human Rights Protection Committee (BHRPC) has learnt that health conditions of at least 43 more people are very bad in the Bhuvan valley tea garden of Assam where, according to the BHRPC fact-finding report issued on 1 February (https://bhrpc.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/hungeralert1/), 10 people died allegedly due to starvation, malnutrition and lack of medical care during the 4 months period from 8 October 2011 to 8 February 2012 when the garden remained closed and the workers abandoned by the owners. Lack of medical care coupled with starvation and malnutrition put them at risk of lives. Conditions of some of them are very serious.

Uma Goala, 5 year old daughter of Munia Goala of Chengjur in the tea garden suffering from low appetite, vomiting and fever.

The BHRPC members again visited the Bhuvan valley tea garden on 9 and 10 February 2012 to asses the present situations of the labourers there. The garden was re-opened on 9 February and the labourers joined work as they were not left with any other options. Only 3 weeks’ wages were paid out of the 9 weeks’ wages that was long over due at the time of closure of the estate on 8 October last year. The labourers borrowed money or bought food items on credit during the 4 jobless months. They had to repay those loans and not in a position to procure food sufficiently. The garden owners or the administration did not provide them with any food items yet. They are still living in conditions of starvation and half-starvation.

The BHRPC was told that some medicines, particularly of cold and fever, were brought to the health centre in the garden but nothing so far has been distributed among the sick people. No labourer’s health was examined yet. The team met anther 43 sick people only in 3 divisions out of the total 10 divisions. BHRPC is concerned that the number of sick people are much bigger in the whole garden than the double of this number. On 27 January the BHRPC team could have met only 5 sick persons and one among them died on the very next day (that is 28 January). Among these 43 people there are 19 children, 13 adult females and 10 adult males.

Lakhi Sabor, wife of Giridhari Sabor of Boali area in the garden. She is very weak and has low appetite and low vision.

They have various symptoms such as low appetite, stomach pain, gastric, vomiting, swelling of lags, face, hands and bodies, body pain, low appetite, low vision, hearing problem, skin diseases, weakness, dizziness, shivering, fever, menstrual irregularity and problems and many other symptoms. Some of them have asthma, cough and blood cough. BHRPC is concerned hat if they are left untreated and unfed their condition will deteriorate and they may die.

On the other hand, the government of Assam is still denying occurrence of any starvation deaths in the garden even though they admitted the deaths but said that these were natural deaths caused by diseases and old-age describing the mode of death as a cause of death ignoring the underlying causes and they also admitted the situation of hunger prevailing in the garden.

BHRPC thinks there should be an independent commission of inquiry headed by a sitting or retired judge of a high court or the supreme court and comprised of independent medical expert, nutrition expert, labour rights expert and social activist among others to fix the culpability of those due to whose negligence, dereliction in duties and corruption the conditions of the starvation came about in the garden resulting in 10 deaths. The dependents of the deceased must also be provided a reasonable amount of reparation/compensation.

This entry was posted on February 23, 2012 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Hunger Alert, News, Press Releases, Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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